A number of industrial applications including, but not limited to, medical devices, communication devices, and navigation systems, as well as scientific areas such as physics and chemistry can benefit from magnetic detection and imaging. Many advanced magnetic imaging systems can operate in limited conditions, for example, high vacuum and/or cryogenic temperatures, which can make them inapplicable for imaging applications that require ambient conditions. Furthermore, small size, weight and power (SWAP) magnetic sensors of moderate sensitivity, vector accuracy, and bandwidth are valuable in many applications.
Magnetic communication is a promising field that has many advantageous features for environments such as water, in which acoustic waves have been widely used for many decades. The use of acoustic waves for underwater wireless communication (e.g., sonar) although wide spread, may be faced with a number of challenges such as large propagation delays, low bandwidth, and high bit-error rates, due to adverse effects by ambient noise, fading, and multipath propagation. Magnetic communication may also be advantageous in harsh environments such as ground penetration applications.